The Fetennob Spell
by Jo the Phoenix
Summary: Hermione's birthday! What would she like to receive as a gift? This spell will help right? Comedy


The Fetènnob Spell

For Magical Mindy, on her birthday.

Written by Jo the Phoenix.

Characters are the property of: JK Rowling and Warner Brothers Entertainment. Used without permission. No profit is being made by this expression of fan love.

----

"I wish I had an apple," Hermione Granger said, craning her neck to search up and down the Griffindor table for the fruit bowl. As she finished her sentence, an apple came flying towards her over the heads of all of the other students, who were loudly chattering away at breakfast. The apple plopped into Hermione's bowl of oatmeal. It was wrapped in a big red bow and had a tag which read:

"to Hermione.

Happy Birthday!

from Harry."

"Er… thanks, Harry," Hermione said slowly while picking oatmeal off of the apple. "I think."

Harry grinned sheepishly and looked over at Ron, who shrugged.

One Week Earlier

"I think I've found something!" Harry called over to Ron and held up a thick book.

"What – another spell book? She's got more than twenty of them, Harry!"

"Not for her, for me. Look at this," he said, and flipped the volume open to a highly coloured and animated page titled "The Fetènnob Spell".

"This spell will show us exactly what Hermione would like for her birthday. The rest of the book is all cheering charms and other useful happy spells. I'll buy the book for myself and use this spell to figure out what to get for Hermione."

Harry paid four Galleons and two Sickles to the bookshop attendant, who was overjoyed to make a sale to the famous boy wizard.

----

A picture of Hermione smiling, with her birth date written on it, was all that Harry needed to do this spell. Ron opted out, knowing full well their history of extra-curricular spell-casting. Instead, he wrapped up an owl's feather quill and a sheaf of handmade parchment paper for her – a guaranteed hit with his bookish friend.

Harry cast the spell three days before Hermione's birthday. The Fetènnob spell was simple to perform, but Harry wasn't exactly sure how it worked. One could cast it at any time, and the birthday gifts that the wizard or witch wished for would appear for them on their birthday. The gifts would be purchased with gold from the spell-caster's Gringotts vault, which had been fine with Harry.

----

Hermione finished her breakfast, and the three headed off for their classes. Ron and Harry were resigned to trudging up the stairs of the North Tower to their Divination class. Hermione, though, was perfectly smug, strutting off to her favourite- Arithmancy. She waved over her shoulder at them and left them to their long stair-climbing march.

Professor Trelawney was in fine form. At Harry's first throw of his rune stones, she declared that there was doom and destruction directly in his path.

"Oh," was all he said, and then picked up his runes again for a new shake and throw.

Trelawney looked scandalized. "You can't -! The future - !" she sputtered, "Can't be fixed like that - !" She finally gave up on this ignorant and mundane boy with a sniff. As she turned and made her way back across the classroom, Harry and Ron burst into laughter, along with Justin Finch-Fletchley, who had been observing from the next table.

Hermione's class had been nowhere nearly as enjoyable.

"I was _this close_ to hexing Malfoy," she told them later, holding her fingers up only a millimeter apart to illustrate. "He and the other Slytherins made up some dumb song about – Oh no! I can't deal with them again!" she burst out. The three of them were walking down to Hagrid's hut for Care of Magical Creatures class, and Hermione spotted the green-collared robes of the Slytherin class ahead of them. Harry could see Draco striding down the hill between his two lackeys, Crabbe and Goyle. Harry thought it was curious that, despite the warm temperature of this Indian Summer's day, Malfoy had the hood of his robe pulled up over his head. Hermione disrupted his train of thought with a hiss. "He had better not start another chorus of 'Happy Birthday, Mudblood', or, so help me, I _will_ hex him!"

"We'll help you with that, Hermione," Ron promised her solemnly.

"Bad enough to have to deal with them once today…" she muttered.

"Well, at least we don't have Potions class until the day after tomorrow," Harry pointed out as they arrived in the clearing in front of Hagrid's.

Hermione groaned. "I had to cope with Snape today, too! He told me off for no reason in the corridor after Arithmancy! It's like he goes out of his way to make us miserable!"

"He does, believe me," Ron assured her.

Harry was looking at Draco again, who was massaging his jaw as if he had a toothache. Harry nudged Ron and Hermione and gestured.

"What's with him?"

"I dunno, but I hope it really hurts," Ron said.

Hermione seemed to be puzzled and opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment, Hagrid burst out of his front door. A large puff of fur was sticking out of each of his huge hands.

"How are yeh?" Hagrid placed the two furballs on the ground in front of his students, where they wiggled and chirped. "These'r Tweeks," he explained. "Since, er…. Well, since Neville is still out cold in the hospital wing… er… Professor McGonagall asked me if I would mind teachin' you about… uh, less int'restin' creatures."

Harry figured that the only reason that Hagrid was following McGonagall's suggestion was because he didn't want Neville to miss out on the fun of the 'more interesting creatures'.

"Now, then. Tweeks… er, well, they make good pets in that they're, uh, low-maintenance. They don't need much attention, their diet is easy – jus' a dish o' water and a dusty house. They eat dust, y'see. So they're useful in that way. Now, pair up and come and grab one; I got more…"

The students, eager to learn about a creature that wouldn't rip their fingers off, crowded around.

"You, there! Malfoy! What's the problem?" Hagrid called over the student's heads. Everyone turned to look.

Malfoy stood alone. His hood had fallen back to reveal a severely receding hairline – he had gone almost completely bald. His hands were clenched on his face, and as the students jeered at him, walrus-like tusks burst from his mouth.

Harry felt Hermione's hand clamp onto his arm. She looked green, and she whimpered as a big red ribbon materialized in front of Malfoy. It tied itself to one of his new tusks and a tag appeared and became fastened to the ribbon. Harry groaned as he realized that the tag would read "Happy Birthday! from Harry".

"It's okay! I mean, someone'll reverse it, right?" Ron stammered as Draco ran for the castle.

"No, it's not okay," Hermione squeeked. She looked positively ill. "I wished that he would lose all of his hair and grow tusks! And when Professor Snape told me off today in the corridor -"

"Oh no," Harry moaned.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry! I wished -" she gasped, on the verge of tears, "I wished that he would go jump in the lake! I'm going to be in so much trouble!" she fretted.

Harry didn't think that she would be the one in trouble – he knew that he would have at least a few detentions to serve.

His suspicions were proven correct when the class heard a roar from the direction of the docks. "Potter!"

Hermione cringed back behind him as Professor Snape, sopping wet and dragging a huge red ribbon, came stalking down the slope, followed by Professor McGonagall.

Snape stopped in front of them, disentangled the ribbon from his legs, smoothed out his robes, flipped the hair that was plastered flat on his forehead back, and said very coldly "Happy birthday, Miss Granger" before thrusting the bow into her arms.

"And you, Potter, and in very deep trouble, indeed."

----

As Harry scrubbed the Potions dungeon floor without magic in "retribution for casting a spell with absolutely no forethought of consequences", he wondered if Hermione, after all that, had had a good birthday.


End file.
